Education officials have put an increased focus on career-readiness in recent years, talking about the development of skills and an emphasis on instruction in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields that are expected to drive 21st-century job growth.

Yet enrollment in vocational programs – which would seem to ideally fit to meet those requirements – has remained stagnant in Massachusetts, holding at about 20 percent of high school students for the past eight years.

David Ferreira, the executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Vocational Administrators, said the problem might be a lack of space, not a shortage of demand.

"Enrollment has been pretty stable, because just about every school is at capacity," he said. "There are parts of the state with significant waiting lists … Many of them are regional, and have a city as part of their region."

According to Ferreira, there are a number of factors that have driven interest in vocational education in recent years: increased academic performance at the schools, the option to enter the workforce or go to college upon graduation and a shift to more technology-based programs.

"When you look at indicators like graduation rates and MCAS performance growth, vocational-technical schools have been extremely successful," he said. "Families are shopping around, and it does create a supply-demand problem."

Ferreira said the class-space issue is not uniform across the state – there are some areas in which space is adequate, and some in which vocational schools and programs are undersized compared to the demand.

This is borne out in the experiences of Milford and MetroWest-area vocational schools. Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School Superintendent Stephen Dockray said more students had applied to the Franklin school than it could accept.

"We accept about 270 students a year, and last year we had about 293 applications," he said. "That was generally a little down from previous years."

According to Dockray, the overall trend of enrollment at his school is up.

"It’s been going up steadily … we saw a big spike five or six years ago," he said. "Enrollment was in the 900-950 range before."

Patrick Collins, the superintendent-director of the Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School in Marlborough, said his school had faced a similar issue.

"We have around 375 applications, and we’re looking to enroll a class of 280," he said. "I think today, a little more so in the past, parents and students are more fully exploring their opportunities for high school. What people used to do for college – take tours, get brochures – they’re now doing for high school."

Collins said he believed the emphasis of STEM instruction had led to the higher level of attention for vocational programs, as they can illustrate the concepts of those fields in ways typical schools could not.

Page 2 of 3 - "We’ve always been STEM-oriented," he said. "Traditional high schools also have STEM classes, but they can’t replicate our facilities or the depth of our programs."

Collins said the school is looking for ways to expand its enrollment, with the intent of growing from 1,050 students next school year to around 1,200 in the future.

"We’re planning on a growth model," he said.

Other schools, though, do have space available. Superintendent Jon Evans, of Framingham’s Joseph P. Keefe Regional Technical School, said the school currently has openings, and is welcoming applications. He noted, though, that new technology-oriented programs within the school – notably a new programming and web design course of study – were generating significant amounts of interest.

Superintendent Edward Bouquillon of the Minuteman Career and Technical High School in Lexington, said individual programs within the school have waiting lists, but the school itself is not at capacity.

"I think one of the distinctive characteristics of (vocational programs) is that they’re geared toward helping young people get in a profession or go to college," he said. "Individual STEM programs at other institutions do not have that mission of career readiness."

One thing that has proven to be a bottleneck in meeting student demand, officials said, is the difficulty of getting funding for expansions. Upton’s Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School recently had a proposed $2.9 million project voted down by its member towns. Blackstone Valley Tech officials declined to comment for this story.

Ferreira said it is much more difficult for a vocational school to get money for building projects than it would be for a traditional school.

"Requests to individual member towns to authorize borrowing have to get a unanimous vote," he said. "(Fitchburg’s Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical High School) has 17 different communities that have to unanimously say ‘yes’ if they want to borrow money."

"They’re looked at as, ‘If it’s not in my city, it’s not our high school,’" he added. "It is more challenging (to get funding). It can be done, but it’s not an easy thing to do."

Minuteman is currently considering a costly expansion. Bouquillon said the expansion is not intended to increase enrollment, but to bring the facility up to date.

"Our building was built 45 years ago," he said. "Many of our programs were not envisioned when it was designed."

He said the project would have to be approved by the school’s 16 member communities.

Dockray said Tri-County was built in 1977, and is one of the state’s newer vocational schools. He said getting capital improvements for such schools can be difficult.

"Our district is made up of 11 towns. We’re the second high school for them," he said. "I know we’ve talked to the (Massachusetts School Building Authority) about the need - we have schools that were built a lot earlier than 1977 that have to be upgraded. It’s tough right now – the money is just not there."

Page 3 of 3 - Ferreira said vocational schools are looking to get creative in getting instruction to more students.

"We are looking at how to provide access without adding to the building," he said. "Expansion costs are very expensive, and it’s difficult to access the limited resources of the Massachusetts School Building Association."

He said there are some pilot programs going on in which vocational classes are taught at area high schools. Those partnerships, though, can be difficult to establish, because they require districts to share limited resources.

Ferreira said he expected the demand for vocational programs to continue to grow in the coming years.

"When parents see students be successful, they say they want that for their child, too," he said.

Mike Gleason can be reached at 508-634-7546 or mgleason@wickedlocal.com. For news throughout the day, follow him on Twitter @MGleason_MDN.